For thousands of years cooking has been one of mankind's most important activities. Cooking is done in the home, in schools and hospitals, in military installations and aboard ships, in parks, while traveling and just about everywhere a person may be. Cooking can be performed as a basic requirement for survival, for the pure enjoyment of turning basic foodstuffs into delectable treats, and as a profession.
Cooking at its basic is the process of preparing raw foodstuffs for consumption by the application of heat. Usually the goal is something that is not only digestible but also at least somewhat pleasurable to consume. Different cultures use many different foodstuffs to prepare the native cuisines. A rather sad fact is that most basic foodstuffs are by themselves not particularly palatable. Compounding that problem is that eating the same basic foodstuff day after day can be monotonous.
However, in addition to the basic foodstuffs mankind has available a very wide range of food ingredients that can enhance the flavor of basic foodstuffs. Salt, pepper, cumin, anise seeds, ajwain, bay leaf, cardamom, mustard, ground peppers of very numerous types, cinnamon, ginger, garlic, poppy seeds, sesame seeds, turmeric, and curry as just a very small sampling of the different cooking food ingredients available to cooks around the world.
A major problem faced daily by cooks everywhere is keeping their different food ingredients readily available. Another major problem is measuring out the different food ingredients while cooking.
Various approaches have been taken in the prior art to address those and other problems with food ingredients. Spice shelves and spice racks are common. Various measuring cups, spoons and other utensils are readily available and widely used. But cooks still clamor for better ways of keeping food ingredients at hand and in measuring out the desired amounts of their selected food ingredients.
Accordingly, there exists a need for a device which keep desired food ingredients readily at hand. Beneficially such a device would be able to measure out the desired amount of selected food ingredients. Preferably such a device would be easy to use, would not take up much space, would assist in actually adding the desired amount of selected food ingredients to the utensil being used to cook, and would be suitable for being made available at relatively low cost.